123 night in the woods - hanging out with germ and rabies

Dear Readers,

After meeting Donna's cousin I went to see Germ at the Food Donkey.

We said hey and he asked if I wanted to hang out. I said I had plans later and he said he didn't think I was gonna get kidnapped or anything. I said "Yeah sure!".

We got on his bike he had behind the Food Donkey and the scene shifted to the bridge on the other side of town.

I asked him if his bike was gonna be safe. He said yeah, that he didn't think anyone's been in that shed for years. He said sorry for me falling off. I said it was cool and I felt so alive. He said scrapes are cool like that. I said "I skinned my elbow" and he said he could ride me to the hospital for this serious wound :) I humoured him, telling him to put the siren on!

We walked someway across the bridge and he jumped on the guardrail. I asked him what we were doing here and he asked if I trusted him, sounding like Disney's Aladdin or something. I said "Sure" and he said really? I said yeah, I guess. Then he said bye and just leaped off the frigging bridge! I yelled out his name. He called back, saying to jump and it was fine. Wow that was jarring! I jumped off the bridge by pressing DOWN and JUMP, landing in a crumpled heap nearby.

I told him he scared me to death! He asked why, that I jumped off big stuff all the time. I said yeah but that was in town, with nice flat ground. I wasn't used to cliffs and whatever else. He said he forgot I grew up in town. I asked him what we were doing here. He said he came here a lot and wanted to show me something. I asked him "You hang out at a sewer pipe?" and he said not exclusively, though he saw 10 rats down here once. I said that was pretty cool.

He led me into the sewer pipe, which had some wall drawings inside. He said he started coming down here a few months ago to, like, just hang. Then this big rat-like creature crawled up behind me. It was a possum. "Hey Rabies!" he said and I yelled when I saw it. He said Rabies was his sewer friend. I asked him if Rabies was its name and he said that it was his name. He found Rabies when they pulled that body out of here after that big flood a few months ago. I said it was neat. He said Rabies was sad and wet and hungry, so he brought him crisps and ice cream. I said that sounded right. He said he also wanted the other possums to not pick on him, so he named him after something they're all afraid of! I said this was the best story ever and rightly so! He said he was so rad and told him to speak. Rabies let out this wild creature grunt. I was amazed! He actually had him trained! He said Rabies was gonna rule this whole ravine someday and asked him to be nice to me. :)  Rabies then walked away and I said I loved him. That was awesome! :) Germ asked if I had any pets and I said I had some rats downtown. He said that was sweet. I didn't mention the caged bird at home though!

After a pause I brought up the weird stuff that was on the walls in here. Germ said they were ancient cave paintings. Obviously not but I said they weren't new at least. He asked what did I think it meant and I said "If you sleep here you might drown". He said it was true and I said it was sad. He then said it gets too weird to be sad. I said it sucks people are sleeping in here, that it wasn't like we didn't have enough vacant buildings. He said it was dumb. Then he said there were all kinds of secret places like this around town and he was the only person to map... then he was interrupted by Rabies, who brought something. I squealed, asking if that was a Fiasco bar. Germ asked if Rabies wanted him to unwrap it! I squealed again and told Germ he's gotta take Rabies home. Germ said no way, that Rabies would pee all over everything and dig a hole in the wall and live there. I agreed and he said that Rabies was wild and he was going to let him be wild.

The scene shifted back to us at the Food Donkey. Germ said "see ya!" and did his walking into the steps trick again. I doodled us in my journal, dropping off the bridge on the page opposite the car park doodle.

Before going to see Angus, I walked up the steps to the fence where I saw the ghost on Halloween. I thought to myself... how did he get over this thing? There was no way he could've jumped over it. There was no hole, so how did he do it? I thought maybe it really was a ghost... I think it was a ghost anyway. I groaned in frustration and wondered just what was out there?